Here and Now
by Black Butterflyz
Summary: Inspired by the challenge for July 2002 at the Unnatural site. Connor's POV on the day of his wedding 2008.


Disclaimer: In no way do I own Buffy, Angel, all related trademarks, etc, etc, etc. It all goes to Joss and his crew. Title: Author: Hana/Black Butterflyz Email: thedaisygirl_2003@hotmail.com or blackbutterflyz_2003@yahoo.co.uk Rating: PG-13 Summary: Inspired by the challenge for July 2002 at the Unnatural site. Connor's POV on the day of his wedding 2008. A/N: One requirement of the challenge was past Main character death, and this story is also angst - don't say you weren't warned! For Tara fans: she hasn't died in this story. This story is my first of many things; first POV piece, first major angst piece and first ever challenge so try not to be too harsh if you don't like it. Feedback is.the only reason that I write! So send me some!  
  
This morning, I'm sitting in my father's bedroom at the Hyperion Hotel playing with my car keys in one hand and the ring I bought for Dawn in the other. I remember going with Fred to buy it. I had gone with Gunn when I bought her engagement ring but I wanted the wedding ring to be absolutely perfect. Fred and I must have gone to almost every single place this side of L.A. I place it on my dressing table next to the bed and start to roll up the cuffs of my sleeves. On the floor next to me boot, is a box of unused wedding invitations that say in silver my name and Dawn's. The wedding date is written there too.today.  
  
*  
  
I can still remember how it all started four years ago.  
  
She came to L.A. to meet her father and on the way stopped at the Hyperion just to say hi. I thought she was the beautiful person I had ever met, but I didn't say anything to her. We smiled at each other and that was it, she left the hotel. I wondered whether we would see each other again but I did. I was walking back to the hotel late in the night and it was raining and I bumped into this young woman who was running fast and not looking where she was going. She looked up at me and I saw Dawn. Even the heavy rain that night couldn't disguise her red eyes and large tears. Something made me want to take her in my arms and kiss her until all the tears went away. I took her to the hotel, but she wouldn't say anything. When we arrived there, she spoke mainly to Dad but told all of us that she'd had a fight with her father who wanted her to stay here with him instead of going back to Sunnydale and Buffy and all her friends. She refused to back to his house and stayed with us for a few weeks and we started to talk more. Up until then, Gunn and Fred were the only friends I had. But Dawn was different.  
  
After finally sorting things out with her father, it was time for Dawn to return home. I drove her down to the station that day. When we were saying our goodbye's she stood right in front of me, look me straight in the eye and said, "I'm going to miss you, Connor." I wanted to tell her that I would miss her terribly but I couldn't think of how I would be able to tell her just how much. It was then, as she looked up at me, that I lowered my head, and kissed her.  
  
I was completely taken aback when she began to kiss me back, but when the bell rang she broke off.  
  
"I-I have to go now..." she mumbled and tried to pick up her bags. Then she suddenly dropped them all and said, "Why didn't you do that before?"  
  
Then, it was my turn to mumble. "I-I...I didn't know whether you..."  
  
"Hello! I sent you every single kind of sign I could possibly give and then when nothing happened I thought you weren't interested!"  
  
"I thought you weren't interested!" I exclaimed back at her. A few seconds later, we started kissing again until the bell resumed ringing.  
  
We didn't say much else - I had no idea what to say - and then she left and went back to Sunnydale.  
  
I didn't tell the guys about it, even though Gunn knew I liked her because I wasn't sure what was going to happen. She called the next day because Dad had told her to call once she got back, and I answered the phone. We didn't say much, just little stuff and then when she asked for Angel I gave him the phone. She called the next week, this time to speak to me. After that, I called her every week, but we never mentioned the kiss again.  
  
About two months after she went back, Willow and her girlfriend Tara were getting married and all of us got invited. I was kind of surprised because firstly, Gunn, Fred, Lorne and I had never met any of them, but when we arrived in Sunnydale a week before the wedding (as Willow had instructed Dad in her letter) they were both really nice to all of us. And I got to meet Dawn again.  
  
Because of all the wedding preparations going on Dawn and we didn't even get to see each other much but after the ceremony took place and we were at the reception we started talking and that night I drove her home and she kissed me on her doorstep. We hung around for two days after the wedding and in those two days, Dawn and I decided that we would try a long distance relationship. I called her everyday after that.  
  
*  
  
I knew I loved her, but it took me years before I worked up the courage to propose to her, which I did six months ago. The day after Dawn said yes, she, Buffy, Tara, Willow and their friend Amy went mad planning the wedding. They arranged for it to be held in a hall, like Willow & Tara's wedding (as Angel and Spike wouldn't be able to come to a church - I'm not quite sure if I would even be able to go to a church), today in the afternoon.  
  
I checked my watch and saw that according to the wedding invitations it was supposed to start in three hours. I can hear a noise at the door and look up, to see my own father standing there.  
  
"Hey Connor," he says.  
  
"Hey."  
  
"Are you okay?" he asks after a few more moments of silence that seem we seem to have loads of nowadays.  
  
I don't say anything, but I know he understands. "Do you want anything?" Dad asks. After I choke out a no, he closes the door silently and I can hear the soft thud of his footsteps on the staircase.  
  
His walk is slower now. And as much as I would like to think that for some reason even though he's a vampire his 'old age' or something is catching up on him, I know that's not the reason. It's because of what happened to her.  
  
*  
  
It was only two months ago when the apocalypse approached. Wesley found out about it and was about to call Sunnydale when Willow called to ask us to tell us about it. It was prophesized that an apocalypse was about to take place over the hellmouth and that - as usual - the whole world would end. The only thing was that this time it was vampire who was supposed to be leading the apocalypse was an old friend of Angel's. And that he would be involved in bringing about the apocalypse. Well, Angelus really, since he was Angelus when they were friends.  
  
After working together Wesley came to the conclusion that since the prophecy said that Dad was one of the main people who would bring about the apocalypse, he was one of the few who would be able to stop it. But it wasn't him who stopped the apocalypse.  
  
Wesley, Tara and Willow worked out what night it would take place and we all went to the school building to hopefully get there before Jim, Dad's 'old friend'. That way, we'd be able to stop them before they opened the hellmouth. When we got there Jim - and the crew, which we supposed he had - was no where to be seen. Wesley, Willow, Tara, Cordy and Anya got into a circle and started to perform a spell that would prevent Jim from opening the hellmouth. Buffy, Gunn and Spike went to look around the school to see if anyone was there. Dad, Xander, Fred, Dawn and I had nothing else to do but sit around and wait. Dad and Xander would, under no circumstances, talk to each other and though Dad would have wanted to wait with Fred, she and Xander started talking - something they did regularly as everyone had seemed to notice. I guess Dad kind of got tired of waiting in a corner of his own with nothing to do but sit and wait for trouble to start and so he walked out of the library.  
  
Almost five minutes later we heard noises from outside and Dawn and I ran out to the lawn and found Buffy, Gunn and Spike fighting some vampires. We tried to help them, but they were too strong. I still remember watching Spike fall to the ground and then turn into nothing more than a pile of dust.  
  
I don't know how we managed to kill the other vampires but once we had somehow we all managed to get back to the library in hopes of telling everyone. The only problem was: they had sent out those six vamps to distract us while they stopped the spell.  
  
We didn't know that then, so once we had got rid of the vamps, those of us who remained went back to warn them. I had to pull Dawn away. She looked like she was about to cry, but she didn't. Buffy was just staring at the ashes that remained of Spike, but she managed to stumble her way back to the library.  
  
When we got there the vamps had already attacked them and the place was in complete chaos. Xander was unconscious, sprawled across the floor and Cordy was nursing a wounded Wesley in her lap, in the corner away from where a portal was beginning to form. Jim stood in front of it and Anya opposite him chanting incantations from a spell book. Fred and Tara helped Willow off the floor and then Fred ran to Xander. More vampires came inside and four of them started attacking Gunn, the closest to the door, but the fifth went up to Jim. He stood between Jim and Anya, and then Jim ran out the door. At this Buffy seemed to come back to life and ran after him. Anya continued her spells, trying to close the portal, now with the help of Willow and Tara, while Dawn and I helped Gunn fight the other vampires.  
  
The three of us managed to kill them, and at the same moment that Dawn staked the last one a huge burst of energy came from the portal and knocked out both Anya and the vampire. Willow yelled out that they couldn't close it, just as Tara drove a stake into the heart of that vampire. At that moment there was a cry from outside and Gunn and I ran out.  
  
We found a huge pile of ashes. At first I thought it was Dad. I knew Gunn did too. He stiffened slightly at the sight of it and didn't move until we heard the footsteps coming up to us. I got ready to fight, about to pounce on the monster that had killed my father, when the person walking up to us was Dad himself. I gulped anyway. Because lying in my father's arms was Buffy. And from the blood that ran over her body and stained his clothes told me that she wasn't just unconscious.  
  
No, it wasn't the blood that told me that. It was the look on his face.  
  
*  
  
He always loved her. He thought he had loved Cordelia at one point, but it wasn't true. Fred told me that while she had thought they had 'moira' at first, when she met Buffy she knew it wasn't Angel and Cordelia, that it never would be. Cordelia seemed to get over it - she and Wesley are together now. Willow told me that they had a thing in high school and they seem happy.  
  
I open the door, about to go downstairs. I can hear four voices. They all sound happy, but its more subdued than normal because of what today is and what happened then.  
  
*  
  
I was standing on the ashes of the vampire that had killed my father's love. My fiancée's sister. The vampire that had killed the slayer. He was dead. But it seemed the world would still end.  
  
I ran back to the others. Not because I couldn't stand to see that look on my father's face. Not because I had lost a friend. Not even just so that I could be the one who told Dawn. But because I didn't want Buffy to die for nothing. I had to close the portal.  
  
When I got there, nobody even noticed me at first. Cordelia was still fussing over Wesley, Fred and Willow were trying to wake Xander and Tara was doing the same to Anya. Only Dawn was left. And nobody else saw what she was doing.  
  
She was standing right in front of the portal, looking it straight in the eye. That itself was a shock for me - I knew she was afraid of portals ever since.ever since Buffy died that last time. And Dawn didn't know she was dead. I wanted to shout across and tell her. But I was staring at what she was doing. Her hand was in front of her, as if she was reaching towards the portal. And suddenly, the blue energy of the portal seemed to swallow her hand. At this I almost did shout out. But then I couldn't speak. Because I realized it hadn't taken her hand. It had *joined* with her hand.  
  
She turned around; she seemed to know I was there. We both knew that the most important thing had been to close the portal.  
  
I had always been more afraid of Spike than anything, but I didn't want him to die for nothing. I couldn't let Buffy die for nothing. But I couldn't let Dawn *die*.  
  
The look in her eyes told me I had to.  
  
And I did.  
  
*  
  
I walk downstairs and find Wesley and Cordelia sitting behind the counter whispering to each other. Willow is opening a cabinet behind them and Tara is sitting by the side. They came from Sunnydale last night because Willow and Wesley needed to compare some research notes. I heard them arrive, but I Had pretended I was asleep and didn't come out of my room.  
  
Tara notices me and walks up. "Hi."  
  
"Hi."  
  
"Um, Fred said to say hi. And Xander too," she says.  
  
Fred moved to Sunnydale last month, to stay with Xander. It's different without her, but we still get to see her regularly, which is good. Gunn misses her the most, I think. They remained good friends even after they broke up. Fred moved pretty much after Anya left to England. Even though Anya and Xander were over, Fred was uncomfortable staying with him while she was still in town.  
  
"How are they?" I ask.  
  
"Okay. Xander got the flu, but okay. How are you?"  
  
"Okay," I lie.  
  
She walks closer to me, puts her hand in her front pocket and then withdraws something from it. It's small and I can't see it, but for some reason I know what it is she's about to give me. She puts it gently into my palm and I can feel the cold metal against my skin.  
  
"I found it a while ago, with her stuff," she says quietly. "I think she would want you to have it."  
  
I nod and she walks back to the others. I look slowly at the ring. I'm not going to just stuff it in my pocket, but I can't bring myself to put it on either. I decide to string it round the chain I wear that Dawn gave me and put it back inside my shirt. Then I walk up to the counter just as Gunn comes down to join them.  
  
END 


End file.
